The ARM version of Windows 8 might have just become the most desired version of Windows in our hearts and minds. After us talking about legacy code and backwards compatibility in Windows for years now, an Intel senior vice president, Renee James, has just stated that Windows 8 on ARM will not have any form of compatibility for legacy applications whatsoever. Update:Microsoft has responded to Intel's claims. "Intel's statements during yesterday's Intel Investor Meeting about Microsoft's plans for the next version of Windows were factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading," the company said, "From the first demonstrations of Windows on SoC, we have been clear about our goals and have emphasized that we are at the technology demonstration stage. As such, we have no further details or information at this time."

You made a point of "performance" which is the argument of the previous poster, but not the crux of my argument.

I take your argument is something along the lines of: If people want a faster Internet Browser on ARM, not any amount of 'simple porting' of IA-32 optimised code to ARM will work.

My argument is:

1) However, if people wants just a simple application e.g. internet browser on ARM, there are alternatives. E.g. Chromium initially requires SSE2 to compile but such dependencies are removed in order to run on ARM and pre-pentium 4 computers.

2) If productivity does not depend on the cpu performance (e.g. word processing, emails, stuff), one should never put performance as a priority.

3) Keeping hardware optimisation at the application level is absurd (IMO) for most applications, such optimisations should remain hidden under the OS. Only when very high performance/accuracy is required that developers should 'peer' closer to hardware.

4) You trying to 'put the point about CPU cores' does not make any sense to me, I assume you know more about CPUs than I do.